Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Inferring Social Organization Through Mortuary Practice

这项研究的广泛而基本的意义在于它将提供对小规模传统社会是如何组织的洞察。与其他这类研究放在更广泛的背景下，它有可能阐明社会复杂性是如何发展和维持的。今天，小规模的社会群体仍然存在于民族国家中，了解它们是如何运作的可能会有实际的好处。平等对待死亡是否反映了平等对待生命？伊比利亚铜器时代是一个以早期复杂社会的出现为主导的时期，其特点是农业集约化、政治集中化和人口聚集化。之前的研究集中在集体埋葬的现象上，以表明这些广泛的社会过程是由一个“社区组织的社会”所保障的。然而，这些社区的内部组织仍然知之甚少，特别是因为这种集体埋葬的保存问题和社会功能还没有得到充分的探索。这项研究有助于越来越多的关于史前集体埋葬的意义的工作。虽然这一主题近年来值得人类学越来越多的关注，但很少有伊比利亚特有的分析让研究人员了解这种大规模遗址在社会组织方面代表了什么。重要的是，更好地了解伊比利亚石器人特有的集体安葬方式，将有助于更详细地了解这些非正式的早期复杂社会是如何组织起来的。该项目的学术价值在于其多组分的生物考古和考古分析为西班牙的停尸房工作提供了一种新的方法，并应为未来的项目提供一个框架。面积113公顷的Marroquíes Bajos是那个时期已知的最大的定居点之一，包含了四种不同的埋葬计划的证据。该项目对现场停尸房的可变性进行的生物考古分析将有助于调查伊比利亚铜器时代社会的集体组织程度。特别是，尚不清楚集体埋葬是否掩盖了由于性别、年龄或社会群体隶属等社会特征而导致的个人在获得食物、疾病负担和活动水平方面的显著差异。通过对人类遗骸的分析、饮食的同位素分析、AMS放射性碳年代测定以及对墓葬形式和墓葬物品的检查，这项研究将允许更细微地重建铜器时代社会的组织方式，同时加深我们对史前人口如何以及为什么使用集体埋葬的理解。

The broad and fundamental significance of this research rests on the insight it will provide into how small scale traditional societies are organized. Placed in broader context with other such studies it has the potential to elucidate how social complexity develops and is maintained. Small scale social groupings continue to exist within nation states today and there can be practical benefit to understand how they function.Does equal treatment in death reflect equal treatment in life? The Iberian Copper Age is a period dominated by the emergence of early complex societies, which are characterized by agricultural intensification, political centralization and population aggregation. Previous research has focused on the phenomenon of collective burial to suggest that these broad-scale social processes are underwritten by a "communally-organized society." However the internal organization of such communities is still poorly understood, particularly because the preservation issues and social function of such collective burials are underexplored.This research contributes to a growing body of work on the significance of collective burials in prehistory. While this topic has merited increasing anthropological attention in recent years, few Iberian-specific analyses have been conducted that permit researchers to understand what such large-scale sites represent in terms of social organization. Importantly, a better understanding of the communal interments so characteristic of the Iberian Chalcolithic will allow for a more detailed understanding of how these amorphously "collective" early complex societies were actually organized. This project's intellectual merit lies in the fact that its multi-component bioarchaeological and archaeological analysis offers a novel approach to mortuary work in Spain, and should offer a framework for future projects. At 113 ha in size, Marroquíes Bajos is one of the largest settlements known for the time period, and contains evidence of four different burial programs. This project's bioarchaeological analysis of the mortuary variability at the site will allow for the investigation of the degree to which Iberian Copper Age societies were collectively organized. In particular, it is unclear whether collective burials mask significant differences in individuals' access to food, disease burdens and activity levels as a result of social characteristics like gender, age, or social group affiliation. Through analysis of human remains, isotopic analysis of diet, AMS radiocarbon dating, and an examination of tomb form and grave goods, this research will allow for a more nuanced reconstruction of the ways in which Copper Age societies were organized, while deepening our understanding of how and why collective burials were used by prehistoric populations.